Where can you buy an Aboriginal film?

Cinema is performance, that's how us blackfellas have connected with it. It's where we come from, with our storytelling. A lot of dreaming stories are about moral stories and news and teaching... that's the way Indigenous filmmakers are thinking.
— Warwick Thornton, Aboriginal director [1]

Selected statistics

$7.5m

Box office result of 'Bran Nue Dae' in July 2010, which is the second best of the past 12 months [2].

$3.2m

Box office result of 'Samson And Delilah' in July 2010, which puts the movie in sixth place [2].

Number of videos the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies needs to digitise before 2025 or their content will be lost [7].

1,365

Number of audiotape reels directly related to film material the Institute needs to preserve [7].

How can Aboriginal films support teaching?

The Aboriginal film industry has come a long way—Aboriginal directors shoot films with both traditional and contemporary content, and non-Aboriginal directors leave behind common stereotypes and realise the diversity of Aboriginal topics they can use for their movies.

Students and teachers can benefit from this rich array of films. You can use movies of the 1960s and 1970s to teach about blackface and why no Aboriginal actors were used, as well as stereotypes or racist legislation such as the White Australia policy. There are plenty of documentaries that can support teaching Aboriginal studies.

If time is short, the many Aboriginal shorts can be used. They can be humorous, stern, informative or highly critical and political. Many come as a set on DVD compilations, for example Bit of Black Business.

Aboriginal films also allow to investigate how different - or alike - Aboriginal directors and non-Aboriginal directors cover topics.

With quite a few films freely available on YouTube they can become part of assignments and student essays, or even part of an online test:

Should Aboriginal stories only be told by Aboriginal writers and film makers?

What are some of the social and political reasons for why it has taken so long for positive Aboriginal films to be made in Australia?

How has Aboriginal representation changed in films over time?

What are some of the core political messages and demands found in films by Aboriginal writers and directors?

What are some of the Aboriginal issues, inherent in Australian society, that are yet to be told on film?

Study guides

Take advantage of the study guides that accompany many films. The following companies offer teacher's notes or study guides for download on their websites:

Aboriginal film festivals offer opportunities to watch contemporary works and engage with actors and directors in Q&A sessions. It allows students to get up and close and ask the questions they have prepared prior to visiting the festival.

Periods of Aboriginal film

Aboriginal film has changed significantly over the last 100 years. Here are the rough main periods [8]:

Uncivilised (1930s-1950s)

This period focuses on the conflict between white settlers and Aboriginal people who are portrayed as 'black devils', violent, uncivilised, murderers and an inferior race. Aboriginal Australians on film are often played by non-Aboriginal people in blackface.

Mysterious and misunderstood (1970s)

Aboriginal characters start playing a greater role in films. Films present them as helpful, kind and knowledge-keepers of the land. But they appear separated from both non-Aboriginal actors and audience, and presented as mysterious and misunderstood.

During this period the first films appear shot by Aboriginal directors (who are often young and fiery activists), discussing social and political Aboriginal issues.

White Australia's black history (1980s)

In the 1980s the Australian public - and with them non-Aboriginal directors - started to wake up to the fact that Aboriginal history since white settlement was more complicated and shocking than they had acknowledged: Stolen land, stolen wages, stolen children, massacres, deliberate poisoning, abuse and discrimination in all forms.

Terra Populus (1990s)

The struggle of Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo to have his rights to ancestral land recognised, and the subsequent 1992 Mabo ruling of the High Court exposed the myth of 'terra nullius', and recognised the rights of Aboriginal people to land. The Mabo Case influenced the portrayal of land in many films that followed.

Other films assert the impact of activists on government policy and the Australian public's perception of Aboriginal issues.

Reconciliation efforts (2000s)

Mainstream television, notably ABC and SBS, broadcast or help produce more films that address Aboriginal issues and experiences and what it means to be Aboriginal in contemporary Australia. Some have become classics of this time.

It is also a time where films start laying bare Australia's racist past and the abuse of Aboriginal people, making audiences identify with Aboriginal characters, even if this meant siding against the white characters.

Aboriginal directors use film and television to document their cultures, promote social change and to entertain.

A lot of whitefellas in the press put shit on Aboriginal communities. That's one of the reasons why I make films.
— Adrian Wills, Aboriginal director [9]

From traditional dreamtime tales to the challenges of contemporary Indigenous life, our film-makers give an insiders' view of what it means to be a Black Australian in the 21st century.
— Rachel Perkins, Aboriginal director [10]

We’re not trying to educate people; we’re just trying to give them access to a life that they might not have ever seen before. That for me, is the beauty of what we do as filmmakers; that special thing of showing people a different world, and helping them one screening at a time.
— Warwick Thornton, Aboriginal director [11]

Movies listed for research

Fact: The original versions of more than 90% of all Australian films made during the pre-1930 silent era are missing.

We've had plenty of so-called Aboriginal content created by non-Aboriginal producers, writers and directors. But the issue of Aboriginal control is paramount. Now is the time to invest in genuine Aboriginal screen culture as the unique film sector of tomorrow.
— Michael Coughlan, director of an Aboriginal film skills training company [12]

Aboriginal actors & their roles

"People have to start from somewhere and you would be surprised how many Aboriginal people have a desire to be on the screen and give it a go," says Aboriginal director Beck Cole. "If people keep casting the same people over and over again, we're not going to build up that body of skills and people to draw on." [13]

If Aboriginal characters are cast (83% of TV programs between 2011 and 2015 had no Aboriginal main characters) their character's occupations are proportionally more ‘leaders’ (6%) than the other cultural groups and have the highest proportion of criminal (12%) and cultural or sporting roles (10%). Unfortunately they also have the highest proportion of undefined roles (22%), i.e. roles that are primarily defined by their relationships to other characters rather than their occupations. [4]

Aboriginal actors accounted for 5% of all main or recurring characters in surveyed TV programs between 2011 and 2015 [4], double the proportion of the Aboriginal population counted in the 2011 Census. But this is not because mainstream TV casts more Aboriginal actors.